Registration Fees

I understand that UKA/EA registration fees will increase from £5 to £10 for road runners/endurance runners and from £5 to £20 for track and field athletes in April 2013 . This is a complete disgrace.

It is wrong for Government to increase this tax on runners and athletes. It is spineless for UKA/EA to give in to this Government blackmail.

Clubs must not act as tax collectors for Government. Races must give all club members a discount whether or not they are registered athletes. Club members should boycot all races that restrict discounts to registered members of EA,Scottish Athletics or Welsh Athletics 

Comments

  • If they don't tax you, how do you expect them to run their Bentleys? Have a heart!

  • Stevie  GStevie G ✭✭✭✭

    Increasing tax on runners...it's a new low.

  • How is it a tax?  You don't have to pay it. 

    And it doesn't go to the government, as far as I know.

  • Government blackmail? Tax on runners?

    Are you getting several news stories mixed up here somewhere?

  • You only have to pay it if you want to run in championships, be eligible for selection for national teams and be eligible for discounts in certain races, and on some other stuff. Otherwise, don't bother. http://www.englandathletics.org/page.asp?section=444&sectionTitle=Athletes

  • Maybe true, maybe not Michael, but at least tell everybody you are drumming up support for the Association of Running Clubs or does that post come later?

  • Stevie  GStevie G ✭✭✭✭
    Wilkie wrote (see)

    How is it a tax?  You don't have to pay it. 

    And it doesn't go to the government, as far as I know.

    That's like saying increases on duty on cigs and booze aren't a tax, because you  aren't forced to have those.

  • If this increase is to pay for extra tax the government are placing on the sport, then in an Olympic year when MPs are all squirming over each other to make capital out of excitement about sport and the so-called Olympic legacy, that is an utter disgrace.



    Many will have no option but to pay this, as a majority of running clubs' membership fees include UKA membership, as they can't let you run uninsured. ??30 is a very different amount from ??20, and family memberships are going to go up very significantly.



    It smacks of 'green' taxes: a good excuse to levy taxes, but none of that money ever goes to reducing the cost of public transport.
  • Radicchio wrote (see)

    Many will have no option but to pay this, as a majority of running clubs' membership fees include UKA membership, as they can't let you run uninsured. ??30 is a very different amount from ??20, and family memberships are going to go up very significantly.

    It smacks of 'green' taxes: a good excuse to levy taxes, but none of that money ever goes to reducing the cost of public transport.

    My club doesn't include the cost of being a competing member in the membership fee - not everyone wants to be a competing member.  Those who do pay the extra for it.

    If your club DOES include it, and you don't want it to, then tell the club secretary so.  They may not want the admin of picking out those who do and those who don't, but should consider what the members want.

    As for the insurance, that is 'purchased' with the CLUB's affiliation fee, not the individual competing members' fees, so all members are covered whether they are competing members or not.

  • Stupid question probably, but why do you need insurance to run for a club ???

  • It's all right Michael, your top rate of income tax is about to come down. You'll still be able to afford champagne.

  • He hasn't mentioned his own, alternative organisation. Yet.
  • Tommygun2 wrote (see)

    Stupid question probably, but why do you need insurance to run for a club ???

    As far as im aware, it's similar to that of golfers. If your average club golfer goes for a round of 18 holes one bright morning and slices one horribly off the tee that screams towards Cyril and his buddies on the green next door at a rate of knots and clonks one of them square on the bonce dropping him to the ground like a sack o tatties then you're gonna be in a bunker full of shit.

    If the guy you've just took out decides to haul you before the courts then you're insured against it and the insurer pays out, not you.

    Imagine it's a similar type of thing incase your running spikes tear down someone's themeral artery on a leisurely 10k run next time you're at a club meet.

  • It's third party insurance, so if you knock somebody over or similar when running on a club run, the ambulance chasers can chase UKA insurers. If you lose a limb/eye/head when running (I guess it happens), then you or your club would need personal accident insurance for a payout.

    RunBritain groups are insured through the leader's qualification/permit.

  • Makes BTF membership look even better.  For that you get covered for running, swimming and cycling and it is completely optional and never associated with the club you may or may not chose to compete for.

  • Tom.Tom. ✭✭✭
    Michael White, as UFO rightly says, has an axe to grind.



    Can anybody point me to whereabouts on the net I can read for myself about UKA/EAs intentions regarding increasing registration fees. Also MW says that this is a government levied tax on runners - don't recall George Osbourne announcing this. If he did, then it will be white sticks and wheelchairs taxed next for para athletes
  • -can't work out how this is a government taximage

    anyway even for those of us unwaged its not a hell of a lot of money.if the money is used by UKA to improve running for youngesters etc then whats the big deal....as Wilkie says.its not compulsory for runners

  • Its hard to find a race nowadays for much less than £10.so ist just like another race fee

  • UKA have their faults.  The main gripe being that the competitors get very little back for that fee.  But I can't say that I've seen anything in return from ARC either.  At least UKA sent me on a training course.

     

  • Someone on the club committee confirmed this (the increase) for me today.

    We (the club, and more precisely me & my clubmate) are doing a beginners' running course at the moment. I am very worried that the increase - which will pretty much double the annual club membership fee - will just put everyone off from even considering joining the club. 

    OK so it's "only" ten pounds if you stick to road races. Firstly, a lot of beginners (a lot of folk full stop) aren't going to do as many as five races a year. It just won't be worth their while. Secondly - so, want to take part in a summer track 5k, or fill in for someone in the vets league when we're short of a team member... sorry, that's an extra ten quid?

    I guess I'm upset because I've been put in an invidious position - I want to encourage beginners to come into the sport and join their local club but now it's so much more expensive I'm not sure I can really make a case for it. I can afford it and compared to what I spend on races, travel etc it's a drop in the ocean but it's a very different story for new runners

    Short of a wholesale rebellion this is probably going to go through - so I would be interested to hear about what other clubs are thinking of doing about this. Any ideas?  

  • You don't have to have the the EA Race Licence, as you say if you don't run 5 races a year then it's not worth it.  Just don't get one and pay the £2 levy at each race you enter.

    5k Track is that an open race or one that your club puts on for its members? 

  • as effective revenue generating strategies go, increasing the runners tax is up there with removing the tea and coffee subsidy for nurses (my gf's current bugbear that there is no free milk in the fridge at work any more).

  • WilkieWilkie ✭✭✭
    Fido2Dogs wrote (see)

    Someone on the club committee confirmed this (the increase) for me today.

    We (the club, and more precisely me & my clubmate) are doing a beginners' running course at the moment. I am very worried that the increase - which will pretty much double the annual club membership fee - will just put everyone off from even considering joining the club. 

    F2D - we have a low membership fee, and then if people want to be Competing Members, they pay the fee for that separately.   That way only those who choose to, pay the extra.  There's no need for people to be competing members if they don't want to and won't benefit from the discount.

    I think this increase will make a few members of my club choose not to come April.

    The OP refered to the government and this being a tax, but UKA have assured me that the fees Including the increase) go only to UKA.

    AG - it's not a tax, it's a voluntary payment which buys you a discount on race entries, and a discount in Sweatshop.  Save your tenner and use it to pay the unattached levy.

  • ah i see, thanks for the clarification. but what about my gf's tea kitty?

  • WilkieWilkie ✭✭✭

    I work in a University, and we have to buy our own milk too!

  • I work at home and have to pay for my own coffee too.

  • jeez, the injustice. I blame thatcher (the milk snatcher)

  • WombleWomble ✭✭✭
    I'm working at home and have to pay for the electricity to run my computer. Best get back to it then.....
  • AlfieAlfie ✭✭✭

    I'm not sure UKA have thought this through - such an increase will invariably lead to less registrations. Currently all of our club members are registered out of their membership fee. I reckon that if we gave members the option, over half would not pay as they are not regular racers (less than half have participated in a race in 2012), hence UKA's income from our club would fall.

Sign In or Register to comment.